You may have hit a follow limit. Twitter has imposed reasonable limits to help prevent system strain and to limit abuse. Read more about follow limits below.

Twitter's technical follow limits

Every account can follow 5,000 accounts total. Once you’ve followed 5,000 accounts, there are limits to the number of additional accounts you can follow. This number is different for each account and is based on your ratio of followers to following; this ratio is not published. Follow limits cannot be lifted by Twitter and everyone is subject to limits, even high profile and API accounts.

Every Twitter account is technically unable to follow more than 1,000 accounts per day, in addition to the account-based limits above. Please note that this is just a technical limit to prevent egregious abuse from spam accounts.

What to do if you've hit a follow limit

If you've reached the account-based follow limit (5,000 accounts), you’ll need to wait until you yourself have more followers before you can follow additional accounts. Follow limits are system-wide; our support team cannot remove or adjust your follow limits.

To follow one or two additional accounts, unfollow a few accounts you're currently following. Please note, however, that regularly following and unfollowing many accounts at a time is a violation of the Twitter Rules and can result in account suspension.

Why Twitter limits following behavior

These limits help us improve site performance and reliability and help us make Twitter better for everyone. Read more about why we have follow limits.

What to expect if you're "whitelisted"

Some API administrators have whitelist status so that their applications can function without hitting system limits for Direct Messages and API requests per hour. Whitelisting does not increase the follow limits and all accounts are subject to the same follow limits and rules. You can find information on our current update, Direct Message, and API requests in our About Twitter limits article.